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Photographer: Drew Angerer/Bloomberg

If the salary being offered for the newly minted job of Federal Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) is any indication, then the U.S. government is going to have a hard time recruiting qualified candidates.

The first half of Obama's opinion states the obvious risks, which the American people already know: Cyberthreats are on the rise; Hackers in Russia and China are going after U.S. defense contractors; North Korea launched a cyber attack on in 2014; and our nation's cyber adversaries are getting more sophisticated. He sums up the problems by saying "It is no secret that too often government IT is like an Atari game in an Xbox world".

In the second half of his opinion, the President shares his cyber defense plans. First and foremost, he announces a new federal CISO position - which will be responsible for driving (cybersecurity) changes across government.

Obama fails to mention he is offering an Atari game salary in an Xbox world. The new Federal CISO job - which can be seen here on the USAJOBS.gov website - is based in Washington, D.C. and offers a paltry annual salary range of $123,000+ to $185,000. The current average annual salary for a CISO in Washington D.C. is $225,000, and tops out at $334,000, according to SilverBull, a full-service IT and cybersecurity recruiting and staffing company based in Manchester, Conn. Other major metros pay CISO salaries that top out at $380,000.

Is the White House serious about recruiting a cybersecurity chief who is at the top of their profession? The median CISO salary in the U.S. is $204,000. The Federal CISO position - even at the high range - offers a substantially lower salary than the median pay. A Rand Corporation study estimates there are around 1,000 top-level cybersecurity experts globally vs. a need for 10,000 to 30,000.

The President has proposed a $19 billion federal cybersecurity budget for 2017, which is more than a third higher than the 2016 budget. Surely the White House can carve off another $100,000 to bump up the new Federal CISO pay and put it in line with competitive salaries. They'll have to do at least that in order to attract an expert Xbox Gold Live-like player who can protect U.S. innovation from cyber threats.

Visit SteveOnCyber.com to read all of my blogs and articles covering cybersecurity.